G.morning. The FTSE 100 remains open as global virus controls are tightened again.
New York City closed schools, while Tokyo raised its Govt alert to the highest level.
The pound fell against the dollar as Brexit trade talks continued.
5 things to start your day
1) Driving the electric dream can be an expensive journey: In 2019 the UK produced 1.3m cars, but less than one in ten had powertrains. Changing that ratio would be difficult: technology is not the challenge, it is the finances.
2) One in five companies has hit workers with a pay freeze: One-fifth of companies imposed a wage freeze in the first three months of October, despite a resurgence in GDP growth as businesses reopened.
3) Fenwick new boss: ‘Online base for the future of the department store’: John Edgar was appointed chairman of the history department store group Fenwick in April, just weeks after the UK was locked out.
4) Electric car push set to increase energy bills: Mr Nolan, a former Opchem boss, warns that consumers will face higher energy bills over the next decade to fund major improvements to the power grid.
5) The M&C witness founders withdrew from the boardroom shake-up: The trio behind the famous campaign that brought Margaret Thatcher to power left the M&C witness in an administrative shake-up.
It happened overnight
Concerns over the economic downturn of rising corona virus outbreaks in the United States and Europe eased on Wall Street on Thursday as most Asian stock markets clashed with optimism about a possible vaccine.
Tokyo, Hong Kong and Seoul declined, while Shanghai advanced.
On the Wall Street, the S&P 500 index lost 1.2% on Wednesday, erasing early gains after Pfizer and BioNtech reported more promising vaccine data. Losses have risen as New York City has said it will close its public schools for live learning, following an increase in epidemics there.
The Nikkei 225 was down 0.9% at 25,479.27 in Tokyo and the Hong Kong was down 0.6% at 26,394.26 in Hong Kong. Cosby in Seoul was down 0.5% at 2,533.47.
Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 is down 0.1% at 6,536.90. The Australian economy was at more than 30,000 forecasts after the government said it had added 178,800 jobs in October.
Coming up today
Corporate: Cincona, Nude Wines, Londonmetric Property, Halma, CMC Markets, Investtech, Royal Mail, Mitti, Johnson Mathew (Interim results); Gringer, Euromoney, Rural Properties (Full year); Card Factory, Kingfisher, Keller (Business Reports)
Economy: CBI Industrial Trends Survey (UK); Unemployment claims, existing home sales (Us)
